In advance of Obama’s prime-time news conference tonight, here’s a look at where things stand.
Congress
Graham Becomes 5th* Republican for Sotomayor
When President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor made her rounds on Capitol Hill, one of her harshest critics was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham who said after that first meeting that he was “deeply troubled” by her nomination. Something must have happened on the way to the hearings last week because on …
Health Care: Obama Engages More Deeply
Is Barack Obama finally channeling LBJ to save his health reform initiative? As we’ve noted before, the President until now has stayed away from the nitty-gritty of the negotiations on Capitol Hill, largely because he wants to avoid the mistakes that the Clintons made in 1993, when they tried to dictate to Congress precisely how to …
Health Reform, Medicaid and the Governors
A look at why cash-strapped Governors are resisting one of Washington’s biggest ideas for expanding coverage.
UPDATE: The NGA has sent this letter to Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley. Also, here’s their latest assessment of the economic situation in the states: Grim and getting grimmer.
The Mayo Clinic Diagnoses the House Health Bill
Although there are some positive provisions in the current House Tri-Committee bill – including insurance for all and payment reform demonstration projects – the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher-quality, more affordable health care for patients. In fact, it will do the
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Health Care and the GOP
I’m guessing that the word “experiment” was pretty effective with the focus groups:
(Via our friends at C-SPAN)
Health Reform: Bending that Curve
In reading the comments of CBO Director Doug Elmendorf from yesterday, a number of Swampland commenters asked what, precisely, might be done as part of health reform to (1) put more downward pressure on health costs overall and (2) make it deficit-neutral, as President Obama has promised.
Today, OMB Director Peter Orszag reminds …
Why God Invented C-SPAN
From this morning’s Washington Journal. If only it were REALLY like this:
A Big Setback for Health Reform?
Read this quote, from Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf, testifying before the Senate Budget Committee. You are going to hear it repeated often by opponents of the health reform bills that have been unveiled thus far.:
Ted Kennedy’s Health Bill
There was more than little poignance in this statement that was just issued from Hyannis Port. It concerns something that happened minutes ago in the historic Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building:
Sotomayor’s Aristotle
Most lawyers (and any one who’s seen Legally Blonde) know well Aristotle’s famous phrase: The law is reason free from passion.
Playing Good Cop/Bad Cop with Sotomayor?
The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are either playing a very delicate game of good cop/bad cop with President Obama’s nominee to the nation’s highest court, Sonia Sotomayor, or they’re fracturing as a conference and a large number of Rs could end up voting for her.
Health Reform and Abortion (Cont’d.)
Last week, I wrote a story about how the question of abortion coverage is complicating the House’s efforts to write a health reform bill. It has also arisen in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. If you watch this clip, which our friends at the C-SPAN Video Library provided me, you can see how tricky this question …
